While at Baden, Alfieri received the afflicting intelligence of the unexpected death of his friend Gori. This misfortune disturbed his enjoyment of the last days of his visit, which of themselves were sad, from the approximation of so painful and bitter a separation. With reluctance and grief he left the countess and returned to Siena; but his sorrow was too acute to admit of a prolonged stay in a town where he had enjoyed the company of a friend lost for ever. He removed to Pisa; while the countess took up her abode at Bologna. The Apennines only divided them, but he dared not cross them. The gossip of the small Italian towns is unconceivably eager and pertinacious; and it was necessary for her future liberty to guard their conduct from all remark. Early in the following spring, the countess departed for Paris, resolving to fix herself in France, where she had friends, relations, and resources. In the month of August she again visited Baden, and Alfieri joined her. Again his mind was vivified and warmed by happiness, and again two tragedies were the result of the inspiration. The subjects were the Brutus of the monarchy of Rome and the Brutus who died at Philippi. In the first he displays great force and energy; but the second, we must be permitted to say, is a complete failure. To make a perfect equality of sacrifice between the two heroes, as Lucius Junius Brutus caused his sons to be decapitated, so he makes his descendant, Marcus, assassinate his parent. The idea that Cæsar was the father of Brutus is so totally devoid of foundation, and so little in consonance with the simple majesty of the character of the patriot, that it deteriorates from the interest of the drama, and, instead of exalting him, the discovery, the resolution he declares nevertheless to persist in the assassination, the sympathy and admiration he gains, is all so feeble, so puerile, and so false, that it is astonishing that Alfieri did not detect his mistake. To us, who possess the most admirable portrait ever drawn of magnanimous and single-minded virtue in Shakspeare's delineation of the character of Brutus, this failure becomes more glaring, and gives further proof of the Italian poet's error in not studying the pages of the greatest writer the world ever produced.